On opening night, Carissa Adea will star in the much-coveted role of the young peasant girl Giselle, while Richardson Yadao dances the part of nobleman Albrecht and Timothy Paul Cabrera takes on the peasant boy Hilarion.

Apparently, the book is very popular in China. But choreographer Patrick de Bana’s version for Shanghai Ballet, making its British debut, is likely to leave you scrambling in some confusion for a synopsis.

Why, for instance, does Jane first appear with a crazed ghost girl, tottering en pointe, at her arm? And why is there a bunch of male dancers in grey trousers flinging themselves about the stage?

What makes this work so exciting and novel partly has to do with the simplicity of the program. In each piece, Whelan dances with the choreographer who created the work. Watching the four distinct, dazzling pieces, I kept thinking it was like watching an artist dance with his muse.

There’s something new afoot: American Contemporary Ballet has moved into the eastern annex of the Los Angeles magazine building. It's a small dance troupe (11 women, 1 man), but it has made a huge impression since it was founded in 2004 by artistic director Lincoln Jones. Since May we’ve been peering through the dark windows of the company's new space, trying to make out the dancers’ silhouettes as they glide across the floor. They’ve been rehearsing for this weekend’s series of performances as part of Music+Dance:LA Program II. It’s a collaboration with the Da Camera Society of Mount St. Mary’s College, which brings live chamber music to historic sites (the 5900 Wilshire building was designed by renowned architect William Pereira).

Edie will serve as the Grand Marshal of this year's Carnival in Provincetown.

For Edie, who started as a professional ballet dancer with the likes of Ballet Oregon, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Ballet Chicago and Pennsylvania Ballet before moving into musical theater in New York, this Provincetown gig will be a little like returning home.

For Vasiliev, the part of Philippe is one of his favourites, full of masculine vigour and swirling leaps across the stage. The couple's performance of the famous pas de deux which celebrates their wedding is already legendary - and you can see them rehearsing it here.

This week on my video blog, you are watching rehearsal footage of my colleagues and me learning a Jerome Robbins ballet called Concertino. We have an amazing coach, Bart Cook, who knows every step, every count, every head and arm like it is part of his own being. It's one of those ballets with hundreds of counts and everyone is doing something different but at the same time. We, unfortunately, have to do a crash course lesson so we can perform it next week in Spain. Luckily, all three of us dancers have been brought up in the NYCB school of learn everything in one day so we are able to download the information and spit it back out quickly.

A review of the Bolshoi Ballet in "Flames of Paris" by Sarah Crompton in The Telegraph.

But as the work progresses, the quick-fire switches of tone strain. One minute men are rushing around brandishing guns and the next the stage is full of parading Mariannes in long tunics waving palms. Crucially, after the famous wedding pas de deux in which Osipova and Vasiliev dazzle, the mood darkens and Adeline (lovely Anastasia Stashkevich), a good young aristocrat who has fallen in love with Jerome is rushed to the guillotine.

Wendy Whelan is living the dream. As if her 20 years (and counting) as a New York City Ballet star weren't enough to make her the object of every girl's envy, she's now handpicked four of the hottest contemporary male dancer/choreographers to partner with her in "Restless Creature," which premiered this week at Jacob's Pillow.

The result is a stripped-down affair. For Whelan and the project’s creative director, David Michalek, it’s all about the process, and not about the pedestal. The four duets — choreographed by Kyle Abraham, Joshua Beamish, Brian Brooks, and Alejandro Cerrudo, who each dance in their own works with Whelan — all begin with the stage already exposed, and end without bows.

An interview with Precious Adams, an African-American ballet student at the Bolshoi Academy.

“The point of me doing this is I’m chasing the dream,” said Adams, “of becoming an internationally recognized professional ballet dancer, to be able to make this a full career and support myself doing what I love.”